In the heart of Louisiana's bayou, where Spanish moss drips like tears and the air is thick with the weight of sins both human and supernatural, Belle Ombre Plantation stands as a monument to a family's bloody past. When Nadine Washington-a Black woman in her twenties with little but her wits, rage, and inherited stories-arrives to claim her estranged uncle's home, she quickly learns she is not the first to seek answers in this cursed place. She may be the last.
Generations ago, Celeste, a woman wronged and imprisoned, wove a spell of retribution so powerful it remade the Beauregard children-wealthy, sadistic heirs to a plantation built on trafficking and torture-into the monsters their souls had always been. Today, Vess, Seraphina, Beaumont, and Claude stalk Belle Ombre's shadows, their appetites unrestrained, their forms twisted by ancient magic. The townsfolk endure their reign, trapped by fear, debt, and the Beauregards' far-reaching web of complicity.
As Nadine uncovers her family's secret legacy-and the truth about her own connection to the land-she is drawn into a deadly game of survival, memory, and vengeance. Belle Ombre is a place where the line between predator and prey blurs, where the living and the dead share secrets, and where the only way out may be through the very heart of darkness.
This is Southern Gothic horror at its most unflinching: a story of survival, resistance, and the terrible price of justice. It is a novel soaked in the traditions of Haitian Vodou, Louisiana folk magic, and the resilience of Black women who must fight for the living and the dead.
For readers of The Only Good Indians, Mexican Gothic, and The Invited, Belle Ombre explores the intersection of historical trauma, supernatural terror, and the cost of breaking generational curses-delivering chills, shocks, and a heroine whose triumph will linger long after the last page.
Content Notes: Belle Ombre contains graphic violence, body horror, depictions of historical and systemic oppression, and mature themes. Reader discretion advised.